GLORY II Chapter 25

Chapter 25

  As Monday approached the horse holders, the first person he saw was a sergeant he had worked with on a large number of operations, a man many of the 7th Tennessee Cavalry considered to be a genuine hero.

  "Perkins!" Monday yelled, his voice carrying above the booming of the Yankee guns and the sporadic rifle discharges.  "What's the Color Sergeant doin' nurse maidin' a bunch of ornery nags?"

  Perkins almost saluted the Sergeant Major.  He would have if he weren’t fully aware that Monday would chew him out thoroughly for the insult.  "Colonel Duckworth ordered me to stay back with the horse holders, Sergeant Major.  Some excuse about not wanting to get the colors torn in the bushes."

  "More likely to keep you from gettin' your fool head blowed off," Monday grinned, aware of Sergeant Perkin's reputation of being a jinx, mostly to himself.

  "You gonna go in with the seventh, Sergeant Major?"

  "Figured old Ed Rucker was a might bit ticked off after that last little engagement.  I reckon this is where most of the action will be."

  "Get a few of the blue bellies for me, will ya?"

  "Shore, Perkins," Monday replied, continuing on towards the Confederate line barely visible among the thick blackjack and scrub oak brush.  As he approached the line, Colonel Rucker, sitting heavily in the saddle on a large chestnut mare, raised his saber in the sign of a salute.  Monday threw him a thumbs up sign and approached the men sitting and squatting behind a rail fence, the top of the fence stuffed with brush and limbs.  A number of the sections of the fence had been blown apart by the Federal artillery, which continued its rhythmic bombardment.

  Across a small cornfield, he could barely see the Union positions.  They occupied the woods on the far side, hiding behind another rail fence that had been greatly strengthened with logs and brush piled up against it.

  The open field in front of them was a perfect killing ground.  He could see the apprehension on the faces of the waiting men, a sign that the news had been passed down to them of the impending charge.  That they would charge, he had no doubts.  These men were veterans of half a hundred battles and skirmishes.  The shirkers and cowards had long since been weeded out or killed.

  "Them Yanks are goners now!" a Sergeant down the line yelled.  "Sergeant Major Stiehl is goin' in with us."

  The men turned and looked at Monday with wide grins on their faces.  "Ten to one I beat you across the field Huhn!" Monday yelled back.

  "Yer on, Sergeant Major."

  To the right and left Monday recognized dozens of faces of men he had fought with on many occasions.  "You look like the devil, Hubbard," he spat at a private who was covered with mud, gore, and dried blood and smelled like an outhouse.  "Never pass inspection lookin' and smellin' that way."

  "Last time, you looked a lot worse than I do," Hubbard smiled back.  "And if I'm correct, it was the boys of the 7th Tennessee who pulled your bacon outta that fire, too, Sergeant Major."

  Monday smiled back at the remembrance.  He and old Bedford had been in a real tight spot until a battalion of the 7th Tennessee had appeared as if by magic and saved them from certain capture or possibly death.  He looked up at the blazing orb of the hot sun.  It was nearly noon and the heat was almost intolerable.  Most of the men had emptied their canteens after the last mad encounter and were already suffering from the pangs of thirst.  The tightening in their throats due to the anxiety of what was to come didn't help much either.

  Suddenly, a bugle sounded in the distance.  Like an echo, other bugles picked up the sound and a loud symphony of bugle blows pounded the eardrums of the waiting men.  All along the linemen leaped to their feet, vaulted over the rail and brush fence and from the thick woods, and rushed towards the Union lines, screaming out the blood curdling rebel yell.  It was as if they were vying to see who could close with the Union troopers first, who would be the winners in a race to possible death.

  Looking around, Monday could see sheets of fire all along the Union lines on the other side of the field.  A ground clinging cloud of burnt gunpowder hung over the woods revealing the hidden positions of the Federal men in the thick brush.  The repeating rifles of the Union cavalry were already talking a heavy toll on the advancing Confederates.

  Colonel Rucker's brigade was a full hundred yards ahead of Lyon's and Johnson's brigades and was receiving the worst of the Union fire.  The Kentucky infantrymen in Lyon's brigade were surprised to see how well Rucker's dismounted cavalry troopers were fighting, for it was rare indeed that infantry ever admitted the cavalry could hold their own.  To his surprise, Monday could hear the Kentucky men shouting, "O my, Rucker! Stay with him, Rucker!"

  The Federal rifle fire and artillery grapeshot was now so intense; men began to fall on the field seeking depressions in the earth to protect them from the death dealing lead.  From the corner of his eye, Monday saw Colonel Rucker and Lt. Colonel Taylor still mounted and perfect targets for the Federal troops, riding up and down the field, yelling at the men to get up and continue the charge.  The men realized it was certain death to remain on the exposed killing field, but the galling fire coming from the Union lines was horrible to behold and the Federal artillery had now opened up with double canister.

  Monday was just about ready to go back and encourage the men to push on to safety in the thickets, when a trooper waving the colors of the 7th Tennessee ran up and started yelling. "Come on, boys, we can take them!" Sergeant Perkins screamed, waving the flag back and forth, then turning, he rushed head long towards the Yankee lines.  "Follow me!"

  Encouraged by their Color Sergeant and the unceasing demands of Colonels Rucker and Taylor, the men rose up like a dirty gray wave of avenging angels and rushed towards the rail fence and sturdy Union lines.

  Five feet from Monday, Perkins was shot in the leg again, for the fifth time.  Lieutenant Bill Pope grabbed the standard and urged the men on towards the rail fence, now no more than ten yards’ distance.

  "Damn it!" Perkins yelled, lying on the muddy field, his hand pressed tightly against his leg.  "Damn! Damn! Damn!"

  "Move him to the rear," Monday ordered a frightened trooper.  He could see that the scared man had peed his pants and his eyes were round like saucers.

  "I can still shoot, Top," Perkins replied, swinging his colt pistol around to face the fence and Yankee troopers.

  "Yeah, Perkins, I know.  But, you'll bleed to death in ten minutes if you don't get a patch on that damn hole."

  The entire brigade was now at the fence and hastily constructed abatis.  The Federals on the other side were pouring a steady and withering fire into the stalled and bunched up ranks of the Confederates.

  "Pull out a tree, boys!" Monday yelled above the roar of the screaming men and shattering rifles.  Private Ed Wardlow of Company B and Private T.C. Simmons of G Company grabbed one of the bushy topped scrub oaks from the abatis and drug it out into the muddy field.  As they went back for more, Lieutenant Pope, still waving the colors, was struck with a withering volley of fire from the determined Union defenders.  He went down clutching the flag; his eyes wide in surprise, a gurgled command of "charge" came from his dying voice.

  Sergeant Huhn had known Lieutenant Pope for a long time.  He had kept the young Lieutenant under his wing on numerous engagements against the Federals.  He was shocked and outraged to see the youngster literally torn apart by the deadly Union fire.

  With a banshee scream of rage, Hunh tore another tree from the abatis and rushed forward, firing his carbine into the faces of the Union defenders.  He was followed by a steady flow of men who were eager to close with the unseen enemy who had been stinging them.  The brave men of the North were fighting fiercely for their position in the thick blackjack scrub, refusing to give up an inch of ground.

  Not far behind Sergeant Huhn, Monday watched as the ferocious and mad sergeant approached a Union soldier and ordered him to throw down his rifle.  It was obvious that Huhn's carbine was empty, but the terrified Union trooper quickly threw his rifle to the ground.  But even before his rifle hit the grass, several of his companions rushed to his rescue.

  One pointed his carbine at Huhn's face and squeezed the trigger.  Sergeant Huhn miraculously deflected the muzzle of the rifle and the round flew screaming past his head.  Two other troopers attacked Huhn using the butts of their rifles like clubs.  They knocked the carbine from his hands, breaking a finger and his arm in two places, then gave him a terrible blow upside the head that sent him crashing to the ground unconscious.  Privates Lauderdale and Macklin rushed to Huhn's assistance, shooting two of the Federal soldiers who had downed him, then tearing into their ranks like wild Indians.

  Right behind them, Private Henry Fox shot to death a third Union trooper who was bearing in to finish off the unconscious Sergeant Huhn.  Suddenly, like the god of war, Monday waded into the thick of the Union troopers, his pistol in his left hand, and his deadly Bowie knife in his right.  He cut through the terrified troopers like a raging bull, slashing, gutting, shooting, clubbing, and cursing.  Men on both sides were awed by this deadly killing machine, this berserk Viking.

  The Union lines began to slowly back up, no man wanting the terrifying mountain man anywhere near them.  The Confederates continued to push the shattered Union lines back through the thick underbrush.  To halt the steady retreat, which could easily turn into a complete rout, Colonel Waring rushed in the reserve regiments, the 2nd New Jersey and 7th Indiana.

  For half an hour or more the two stubborn forces pounded each other, neither giving nor taking ground.  The attack from Colonel Rucker's brigade was exceedingly fierce.  Rucker refused to retreat.  He held a bulldog look on his face and scowled as his horse finally dropped to the ground.  The poor animal had been shot five times.  Colonel Rucker himself had been shot in the stomach.  Although extremely painful, he continued to hold his position on the field, too stubborn and mad to retreat.

  The Union lines continued to bend in the center.  To the left of Rucker's position, the 18th Mississippi continued to press hard on the 2nd and 4th Iowa regiments.  The Mississippians under Colonel Chalmers, having been stung and embarrassed during the earlier assault, fought the Yankee troopers with a mad vengeance.

  To the right of Rucker's brigade, Colonel Lyon's Kentucky infantry and Colonel Johnson's Alabama boys were not to be denied either.  The Kentucky infantry came on in a classic infantry front, a double line of skirmishers with an infantry line of battle and a column of support behind them.  The Alabama infantrymen under Johnson pushed so hard and so fast, the entire Union left flank threatened to collapse.  Colonel Waring quickly pulled the 2nd New Jersey, armed with the new Spencer repeating rifles, over to his extreme left to halt the mad rush of the determined Alabamians.

  Rucker's men continued to press on.  When the 2nd New Jersey pulled out, the 7th Indiana had to extend their lines to hook up with the Iowa units of Winslow's brigade.  This made Colonel Browne's Indiana line very thin, a fact that Rucker and his Tennesseans quickly took advantage of.

  The 7th Indiana finally broke and had to retreat to reform their ranks.  Major Jones of the 3rd Iowa watched as the 7th retreated and refused his line to prevent Rucker from hitting his flank.  He forgot to tell Major Pierce of the 4th Iowa that he was pulling back and left the flank of the 4th wide open to Confederate assault.

  Colonel Chalmers and his 18th Mississippi boys were waiting for such an opening, and took quick advantage of the error and poured a devastating fire into the flanks of the 4th Iowa.  Lieutenant Dillon of Company C was chopped to pieces and the entire regiment fell back and tightened up to receive the rebel onslaught.

  Both Union brigades had been pushed back in a desperate withdrawing action, a fact that probably saved them from collapsing.  As they withdrew, their lines became more compact and the small gaps that had appeared earlier begin to slowly close.

  However, the men were exhausted and almost out of ammunition.  They had been taking ammo from the dead and the seriously wounded, but that too was almost expended.  The hand-to-hand fighting with the stubborn Confederate troops had also taken its toll.

  Like their Union counterparts, the Confederate soldiers lay exhausted on the field.  Most had been blinded by the thick smoke from the burned gunpowder and artillery shells and their throats were parched almost raw from thirst.

  Private Hubbard found himself lying in a narrow depression.  He had followed close behind the terrifying Sergeant Major, and then found himself face to face with the frightened and sweating Yanks.  Encouraged by the rebel yells coming from the parched throats of his friends around him, Hubbard waded into the thick of the Union line swinging his carbine like a stout hickory club.  After what seemed like hours of ferocious hand-to-hand fighting, the Federal lines slowly, but grudgingly, started to fall back.

  Looking down, Hubbard saw that his knee was wet.  A small puddle of clear water had seeped into the depression and had not yet been evaporated by the searing sun.  He turned around and buried his face in the puddle and drank his fill of the cold water.  Half-muddy water never tasted so good.  He was about to call his friend, Pipkin, over to share his wet gold mine, then remembered that Pipkin lay cold and stiff back in the torn up cornfield.  He had seen many friends go down today never to rise again.  Lieutenant Pope, Sergeant Harper, Pipkin, Boucher, and even old Bill Cagle.  It was a dark day for the 7th Tennessee.  The stubborn Yanks were fighting like madmen.

  It seemed for a moment that the battle had drawn to a halt.  All along the lines the men were lying prone in the grass and mud, trying to catch their breath and wipe the black powder from their eyes and mouths.  We've done a lot, Hubbard thought.  I wonder if the General will pull us back now?  It wouldn't come as a surprise if he did.  It was past high noon and ammunition was running short.  At least he'd seen enough for one day.

  Taking advantage of the lull, Monday headed back through the thickets towards his old coffee fire to see what General Forrest had planned for his next move.  His inner clock and mountain man timing told him it was about an hour past noon.  As he neared the Baldwin Road he could hear a booming, gruff-sounding voice followed closely by a squeaking teenage voice.

  General Buford, Forrest's Division Commander, sat slumped in the saddle of his huge gray mare, all three hundred pounds of him.  Standing on the road next to the jolly rotund general, Captain John Morton, looking like a lost waif, was shading his eyes from the blazing sun with his hands.  He had evidently lost his hat in his mad rush to the battlefield.

  "Tyree's right behind me, Bedford," he heard General Buford tell Forrest.  "He was hard on my heels most of the way from Booneville."

  "Lost a lot of horses gettin' here, General," Captain Morton stated, spotting the Sergeant Major as he sauntered down the road.  "Roads were so muddy had to might near drag the cannon most of eighteen miles."

  "Get your cannons deployed," Forrest ordered the young captain.  "Federals have been pounding our positions for hours.  See if you can develop their positions and knock out some of their artillery.  Men would be grateful to get that infernal artillery stopped."

  As Captain Morton left to search for suitable ground to emplace his eight guns, Monday joined in the conversation.  "If it ain't ol' honest Abe," he stated, addressing General Buford.  He was well aware that Abraham Buford hated to be called that, especially in view of the fact that Abraham Lincoln was also stuck with the stupid moniker.

  Buford puffed out his ample chest and replied with a twinkling in his eye, "Back at West Point, in the old days, we used old men like you to clean the latrines, you ugly, uneducated, moronic excuse for a mountain savage."

  "You're just as sweet as ever, Abe.  How in tarnation that little bitty mare can carry your ponderous mountain of blubber, I'll never figure out."

  "Must have taken you several months to memorize ponderous.  Most of your vocabulary starts and ends with four letters."

  Although it might appear to a casual observer that the two men were bitter enemies, just the opposite was true.  Monday respected the jolly fat general and Abraham Buford would have walked a hundred miles to Monday's aid if it was necessary.  As they exchanged insults and jibes, Colonel Tyree Bell rode up with his large Tennessee brigade and stopped in front of them.  "Where do you want my brigade Bedford?" Colonel Bell asked, saluting General Forrest with a formal salute.

  "Is Colonel Barteau on his way to flank the Federals, Tyree?"

  "Clark split off from us up around old Carrollville, ought to be in position within the hour."

  "I'll take you over to Captain Tyler's position," Forrest stated.  "The Federals have a brigade under Colonel Winslow over there and the only thing blocking them is Colonel Duff's Mississippians and Tyler's two squadrons of cavalry.  Abraham, you take charge over here on the right flank.  Colonel Johnson is north of the road and Hylan Lyons’ boys are south of it.  Hooked into Hylan's left is Ed Rucker."

  "Ed's been shot in the belly," Monday interjected, "but he'll be fine.  Colonel Duckworth can handle the brigade and he's got some good experienced commanders under him.  Course, old Ed won't give in ‘til the fightin' is done."

  "We've pretty much whipped Ben Grierson's cavalry," Forrest continued.  "One solid push and I think they'll crumble.  Colonel Waring's brigade on the front here has already started to pull back and reorganize.  His men have been fightin' for hours and have fired their repeating rifles so fast they must be close to running out of ammunition.  Sergeant Major, I'd like for you to join Captain Tyler's men on the far-left flank.  That'll be a crucial position in a few hours I'm thinking."

  Retrieving his horse, which was still cropping grass near his old coffee fire where he'd left him, Monday climbed into the saddle and led General Forrest and Colonel Bell over to a small farm lane that cut over to the Guntown Road.

  The farm lane hit the road about a mile south of the crossroads.  He led them up the road until they ran into the security units of Colonel Duff's 8th Mississippi, and Captain Tyler’s flankers.  Tyler advised them that the Yankees were about a couple of hundred yards to the north along the road.  General Forrest ordered Bell to deploy his brigade accordingly.

  Bell sent the 20th Tennessee under Colonel Russell to their right of the road to make contact with the flank of the 18th Mississippi, and the 16th Tennessee under Colonel Wilson was posted on the left flank of the 20th.  To the west of the Guntown Road, he posted the 19th Tennessee under the command of Colonel Newsome.

  Still further to the left, to guard his flank, he moved Colonel Duff's 8th Mississippi, the general's escort under Captain Jackson, and Captain Tyler's squadron he posted to the far left to within a couple of hundred yards of the Pontotoc Road.

  General Forrest now had all his available resources posted in a semicircle facing the shattered and exhausted cavalrymen of General Grierson.  He was ready to deliver the final hammer blow, which he hoped would drive the Federal's from the field in panic.